the soon to be outgoing defense secretary leon panetta who has fledged he will remain in the job until his successor is sworn to office. republicans chose to block hagel's confirmation until they get answers from the white house on the president's role and his action during the benghazi terrorist attack on september 11 last year, yielding some what to that pressure today, the white house for the first time revealed in a letter that the president did not personally ask the libyan government for help. and acknowledged he relied on then secretary of state hillary clinton, to reach out on his behalf. that is a revelation that outraged senators lindsey graham. >> the president of united states did not make any phone calls to any government official in libya, the entire period of the attack. he found out from the letter he called governmmnt officials in libya on september 12. after everyone was dead. >> we would not have gotten answers but for push are for this the more answers we've gotten, we've shown this is a national security failure. >> oyote and graham have beee two of the most system